Uncertainty as Zimbabwe deadline for foreign handover looms focus 09/27/2011

Uncertainty as Zimbabwe deadline for foreign handover looms

focus

09/27/2011
HARARE — Foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe have until Sunday to hand in plans to sell majority stakes to local blacks, under a law that has alarmed investors, who are uncertain how the rules will work.
The government’s order for the transfer of 51-percent ownership has been called the final phase of “economic emancipation,” after controversial land reforms targeting white-owned farms a decade ago. But analysts are skeptical.
“There is no way the locals and the government have the money to buy shares in the companies. Everybody knows that,” Anthony Hawkins, a University of Zimbabwe economics professor, told AFP.
The indigenization drive could hurt the economy in the same way as the land reforms, which sparked an economic nose-dive after supporters of President Robert Mugabe violently seized white-owned farms, he warned..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110927com3.html